The Serpent

The added time and the measured work from the show’s core cast help to show the full psychological toll it takes to both evade justice and to attempt to see it delivered.

Serpentine (I see what you did there) storyline concerns aside, “The Serpent” is an effectively unsettling, fictionalized telling of the incredible and horrific series of kidnappings and murders orchestrated by one Charles Sobhraj, played to suave and oily perfection by Tahar Rahim.

The Serpent is certainly a slow burn, and it’s jumpy timeline will take some getting used to. But the lead performance by Rahim, and fine supporting performances by Coleman, Howle and Bamber help us stay engaged with the story.

With the local Thai police both corrupt and uninterested in the fate of ‘long-hairs’, Knippenberg becomes the detective figure in the subsequent story; once you grasped that, The Serpent became less slippery.

It tells the story, makes Sobhraj’s life look fairly glamorous, amid all that murder, and makes it clear enough that these young people had their futures taken from them in the cruellest of ways. But it is not a whodunnit, nor much of a why-they-dunnit: anyone who knows the story will have some idea of where it lands. It looks the part, and pulls the right strings, but, in the end, it left me a little cold.

As a standalone history, it leaves a lot to be desired. It feels as if the miniseries is an attempt to sell us on the fact that while this slice of history—various sunglasses and sapphires and all—is interesting, the full details of it are too difficult to dramatize fully.

The Serpent ends up being an infuriating blueprint for how bad storytelling choices, bad accents and an opaque central performance can thwart even the most inherently gripping of yarns.

This series is based on the true story of con man Charles Sobhraj (played by Tahar Rahim, who was brilliant as the prisoner in The Mauritanian). In the 70s, he befriended hippies travelling thru Asia, slipped them a solution that made them sick, stole their money and passports, then sometimes killed them. Meanwhile, a Dutch diplomat started an investigation into 2 missing travelers which eventually led to Sobhraj being captured. This is an English production, which may be one of the reasons for the subdued pace and the off-camera staging of anything horrible. Rahim plays his character with almost no expression, just a quiet intensity. It makes it seem unlikely he was that charismatic or seductive. While the case plays out over 8 episodes, it could have 6 or 7 if the tension had been tighter. As it is, the story is fascinating, but the “execution” could have used more umph. (Mostly in English, but some foreign-language segments have subtitles)